A message from Mr Copeland
This half term has been filled with joy and excitement in school during the festive period as Christmas draws closer. This started with a whole school trip to Hull City Hall to watch Rod Campbell’s Dear Santa. The children enjoyed the performance and behaved superbly throughout the afternoon. There was lots of audience participation, which everyone got involved in and the children were delighted to come home with a gift from Santa!
cheer, cards and gifts have been exchanged, but what has delighted the staff the most is that the CARE Code continued to be followed by the children despite all the excitement. Last month we wore odd socks, raised money for Children in Need and were
Just a few weeks later our Reception year group put on a wonderful Nativity performance, bringing their version of ‘Baarmy Bethlehem’ to life with songs, costumes, dancing and smiles. It was a magical moment for the parents, grandparents, friends and family. The whole audience was delighted when the sheep finally got to party! It was also lovely to spend a morning of arts, crafts and Christmas songs with our current and future Pre-School families. I hope your creations are proudly displayed at home!
In addition to the Nativity, the children have also enjoyed a variety of festive activities, from crafting decorations to singing carols, Christmas parties to tucking into a tasty Christmas lunch. The school has been filled with festive
thrilled to welcome a local Police Community Support Officer into school this half term to help us share the importance of our Be Bright, Be Seen road safety and awareness day. The children loved learning about the important role that the police play in our community and even got to try on the uniform and explore a police car!
Finally, I would also like to congratulate Miss Knight for being awarded Early Years Teacher status. Over the last year Miss Knight has been on a number of placements at other settings, completed assignments and assessments, all while still working in the Pre-School at Hymers Hessle Mount. One of our Year 1 students had much reason to celebrate as well when she was the lucky pupil winning the HCA’s giant teddy. Fortunately any worries Ruby had about it fitting in her mum’s car were soon put to rest.
It has certainly been an action-packed half term and we hope that all the children and their families, however and wherever you are spending it, are able to enjoy the festive season by having some quality time together. I know that a number of you will not be getting a break this Christmas and I would like to extend a big thank you to all of those working in the emergency services ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our communities.
With very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.
It has been a lovely half term in the Pre-School. We have enjoyed learning more about the season of autumn together through the stories of Leaf Man and The Leaf Thief and joining activities based around leaves, conkers and acorns.
The children have been braving the cold and wet weather by playing outdoors with the rest of the school or using the balance bikes and scooters. In PE, we have been working on developing our ballcontrol skills and enjoyed exploring movement and additional balancing tasks. We are learning a new phonic sound each week and are beginning to hear these in everyday speech. As the darker nights are upon us the children were keen to learn about road safety during our Be Bright, Be Seen activities. They loved receiving a small torch each to take home.
In addition to learning about the Nativity story it has been wonderful to join the rest of the school at the City Hall to watch Dear Santa. All this excitement led to some naps taking place on the bus ride back! We are all really looking forward to Christmas now and to seeing the children again in January.
We have also begun to read some traditional tales, meeting Goldilocks and the Three Bears and thought that the story had the best ending when the bears went out searching for her. However, we did not like the idea that Goldilocks had broken baby bear’s chair and eaten his breakfast!
It has also been a time of new beginnings because we have welcomed more children to the Pre-School and the older children have been so kind, welcoming and friendly towards them, they have really made us proud.
A definite highlight was the opportunity to sit in a police car and hear Jess, our local Police Community Support Officer, explain the different flashing lights and sirens.
RECEPTION
Although this half term was largely filled with Nativity preparations, we have also been working hard in our lessons!
In Maths we have been learning about the composition of numbers and the names and properties of 2D shapes. We went on a shape hunt around the school grounds, it was lots of fun spotting the different 2D shapes in our everyday surroundings. In Phonics we have been learning to read sight words ‘tricky words’ and the children have all made fantastic progress in their reading and writing skills. We look forward to seeing this develop further after the holidays.
We finished off this half term with our topic Christmas: We had lots of fun listening to the Christmas story, discussed why it is celebrated each year
and made decorations for our homes. We enjoyed practising for our nativity play Baarmy Bethlehem and it was so lovely seeing the children’s confidence developing during the rehearsals. We
thank you all for your support helping the children to learn their lines and sing the songs for their play. They have all worked very hard and we could not be more proud of them. We hope you enjoyed the performances as much as we did.
We wish you all a lovely Christmas break and we look forward to seeing all the children after the holidays.
YEAR 1
We have enjoyed another busy and successful few weeks here in Year 1. This half of the Autumn Term is always full of fun and festivities, and this one has certainly not disappointed us! The children have worked so hard in all lessons and have really enjoyed our topics this term. In History we have been learning all about toys old and new, finding out the similarities and differences between Victorian toys and those we play with today. To link with this, our focus story of Lost in the Toy Museum proved to be a real hit with the children. They loved reading the story of Bunting the cat who goes on an adventure to find his missing friends. Our Science work has focused on everyday materials, identifying what objects are made from and
describing the properties and suitability of different materials. This has helped us greatly with our understanding of how toys have changed over time. We have enjoyed two trips this term. The first was to the Forest School, where we had a fantastic time exploring the woodland environment. We played a game of hide and seek, went on a hunt to find the Three Bears and made our own wooden bear
faces, using hammers and nails. We all enjoyed hot chocolate and cookies by the campfire, with Daphne saying it made her feel “as snug as a bug in a rug”.
We kicked off December with a visit to the Hull City Hall to watch a production of Dear Santa. What a fabulous way to get into the festive spirit; the children had a magical time and all behaved beautifully. They even received a little gift from Santa himself!
In recent weeks, we have been looking at the beautiful story Coming Home by Michael Morpurgo, following a robin’s challenging journey home through snow and wind. It has been lovely to see the children immersed in the robin’s plight and they have completed some lovely work on the story, such as writing thought bubbles, mapping journeys and discussing our own ways of celebrating Christmas. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your wonderful support this term. The children have worked extremely hard and we are sure they will do lots of amazing things with you over the holidays. We look forward to hearing all about their adventures when we return to school in January. We wish a Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, and we look forward to seeing everyone in the New Year!
We have been very busy during this run up to Christmas in Year 2, preparing for festivities and putting together Christmas carols for our visit to Tranby Park Care Home. It has been heartening that we have been able to visit All Saints’ Church in Hessle to complete an artefact treasure hunt and light our Christingles, whilst learning the true meaning of the importance of sharing at Christmas time.
In English, we stopped, looked and listened, as we read Dick KingSmith’s The Hodgeheg to learn about the importance of road safety, specifically looking for safe places to cross a road. We tested this with our Be Bright, Be Seen day playground activity, where children designed and made their own riding circuit with traffic lights and a zebra crossing. We also linked a sewing activity to the book and this then led to a Year 2 pom-pom club being started! Many children made really good progress in our DT lessons and successfully went on to sew a scene with layers of felt.
Reading The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch inspired us to take a closer
look at scenesetting vocabulary. The children enthusiastically used team work and their building skills to make a pulley system moving a bucket from one place to another, understanding how the food can get all the way to the top of the lighthouse. After all, Mr Grinling, the dedicated and hard-working Lighthouse Keeper, deserves a delicious Christmas dinner with all the trimmings!
Our final focus text, Cookie’s Christmas Invention, led to discussions around celebrating
our unique qualities and how everyone deserves to feel like they are being listened to.
We would like to extend our festive wishes to you all and hope you have a truly peaceful and wonderful time this holiday.
Key Dates for next term
January
Mon 6 - INSET Day
Tue 7 - Spring Term Commences
Mon 27 - Bird Week Commences
February
Mon 3 - Children’s Mental Health Week Commences
Wed 5 - Book Fair
Thu 6 - Book Fair
Tue 11 - Safer Internet Day
Mon 17 - Half Term Starts
Mon 24 - Return to School
March
Tue 4 - House Pancake Relay Race 2pm
Thu 6 - World Book Day
Mon 10 - Parents’ Evening
Tue 11 - Parents’ Evening
Thu 27 - Year 1 Production 2pm
Fri 28 - Year 1 Production 2pm
April
Fri 4
- Progress Reports Sent Home (Reception, Year 1 & Year 2)
Fri 4 - End of Term (normal time)